A
lock of hair and wool leggings belonging to Sitting Bull, leader of the
Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, are to be returned by the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of Natural History to his closest living relatives. In an
announcement yesterday, the museum said that after Sitting Bull was
killed in 1890 while being arrested by tribal police, his body was in
temporary possession of Horace Deeble, an Army doctor at the Fort Yates
military post in North Dakota, who obtained the hair and leggings from
the body and sent them to the museum in 1896. The return of the hair
and leggings was requested by Ernie LaPointe,
Sitting Bull’s great-grandson and a representative of the four known
living great-grandchildren. The museum's Repatriation Office operates
under legislation that requires the return of certain remains and
objects to lineal descendants and federally recognized Indian tribes.

August 29, 2007

Peru Earthquake: Remembering PiscoI'm sorry but I can't blog about Peruvian food this week; my most recent thoughts about Peru still have to do with last week's devastating earthquake. Bear with me.

Prior to the earthquake, the city of Pisco (about two hours south of Lima) was a historic small town, famous for its colonial architecture, its rich fishing and trading history, and the fact it gives its name to the most traditional Peruvian spirit: pisco.

For thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the region was home to ancient Peruvians who thrived due to its proximity to abundant sea life. The Spanish founded the colonial city in 1640, and during the Viceregal period, it was an important port for the Peruvian colony. In 1820, Peru's liberator, José de San Martín, disembarked in Pisco and lived there for a short while. The first flag of independent Peru was designed in Pisco.

It is a region long visited by many tourists, both local and foreign, because of its rich agriculture, its wine and pisco producing heritage, and its proximity to some of Peru's most beautiful coastline, located in the National Paracas Reserve, which includes the Ballesta Islands, home to rich marine and bird life.

Now, Pisco has been destroyed. Surely, it will rise again, as it did after the earthquake of 1680, but with 80% of its buildings in ruins, the new Pisco will no longer have the genteel colonial air it once had.

To give our blog a personal touch, we are asking for your help in sending our way art-related, newsy information about yourself. Our membership is made up of creative, fascinating, cultured and knowledgeable people. Let's find out what we are all doing and share our news.

The exhibition, "Art of being Tuareg: Sahara nomads in a
modern world," the first major exhibition in
the United States about the Tuareg people, is timely, as
changing conditions in the Sahara -- from global warming, uranium
mining and oil production -- have raised questions about the Turaeg's
future. The exhibition was organized in partnership with UCLA's Fowler
Museum, but the lead author on the catalogue and primary curator is
the Cantor's director, Tom Seligman, who has been communicating with
and studying the Tuareg for more than 30 years.

via LA Times, {CALENDAR, Part E; Pg. 6}:

Tuareg crafts cross paths with the world
Exhibition illustrates how the nomadic people maintain their culture
in modern life.

By Hugh Hart, Special to The Times

"A house is a coffin for the living."-- Tuareg proverb

Romanticized by European colonizers as fierce, camel-riding warriors
swathed in indigo veils, the semi-nomadic Tuareg people of North and
West Africa for centuries coaxed a livelihood from their harsh
environs in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya.

Thomas K. Seligman, director of the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts
at Stanford University, says the Tuareg's historic distaste for
permanent lodging makes perfect sense. "In their worldview,
Tuareg live freely, with almost no stuff, in an environment that they
know and control."

Yet in recent decades, life for the Tuareg has changed drastically,
forcing an ever-growing engagement with the modern world. An
exhibition at the UCLA Fowler Museum, "Art of Being Tuareg:
Sahara Nomads in a Modern World," curated by Seligman,
encompasses recent photographs and videos that reflect Tuareg society
in the 21st century, complemented by 235 objects made from silver,
leather, wood and fabric representing traditional craftsmanship.

Fowler Museum Director Marla Berns, who has studied indigenous Ga'anda
and Yungur groups in nearby northeastern Nigeria, says the Tuareg
developed their distinctive fusion of lifestyle and art as a matter of
necessity: "It's the kind of aesthetic that grows up around
cultures that are on the move. You can't carry a lot of superfluous
material, because you're hauling it all around with you. There's a
tendency to put a lot of attention on the adornment of the self, as
well as the adornment of where people live and the objects they use."
The material on display comes courtesy of the Tuareg's artisan class,
known as inadan. Seligman and others believe the smiths, leather
workers and artists most likely descended from Jewish metallurgists
who migrated to North Africa after they were expelled from Spain by
Christians in the 14th and 15th centuries. Their role within the
Tuareg caste system is complicated.

"Historically," Seligman says, "the inadan were
scorned and feared because they have a lot of unusual capacities that
were seen as socially dangerous but absolutely essential. Nobody else
would think of touching the material they work with, much less trying
to do anything with it."

In 1971, Seligman became intrigued with the inadan when he met
silversmith Saidi Oumba and his wife, Andi Ouhoulou, in Agadez, an
ancient city in Niger that historically served as a caravan stop.
Oumba and his family practice the "trembling hand" technique
of silver smithing passed down from generation to generation.

Since then, Seligman has made more than a dozen visits to the region,
including two collecting trips partly financed by the Fowler. After a
four-month journey to Niger in 2001, Seligman conceived "Art of
Being Tuareg." His goal: "To bring an understanding of the
Tuareg people and their history as well as their dynamic engagement
with the so-called modern world."

The exhibition's contemporary component addresses the ways in which
this once-isolated culture has responded to the encroachments of
modern life. One video piece, for example, documents a desert wedding
attended by nobles on white camels while other guests arrive in
trucks. The wedding band does not rely on traditional goatskin drums.
Instead they dress in Western clothes and play rock music on electric
guitars, although they still belt out lyrics in the Tamasheq
language.

"What's happening with the Tuareg is happening all over the
world," Seligman says. "The region is experiencing
environmental degradation and huge stress from a variety of
geopolitical and global forces -- cash economy, roads coming in --
there's this kind of blending of other cultures."

"Art of Being Tuareg" demonstrates one connection, seen as
largely positive, made between ancient tradition and the global
economy with a display of Tuareg-produced bracelets, earrings,
necklaces and other luxury items marketed to trend-conscious
consumers.

The silver wares, including several crafted by Oumba that now belong
to the Fowler collection, reflect the way the Tuareg have modified
tradition to satisfy a larger public. Some objects are made of gold,
traditionally regarded as a taboo metal. Salt and pepper shakers cater
to Western tastes. And items that would have once been anonymously
produced are now signed by the artist to ensure authenticity in the
face of knockoff "Tuareg-inspired" merchandise.

Says Berns, "The smith class found a way to capitalize on
what they produce and haven't had any difficulty selling to an outside
market. Even though they may not have the social status of the nobles,
the inadan have a different kind of social status in our global
society because they have a cash economy. They're now making
money."

Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World: 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Wednesday-Sunday and until 8 p.m. Thursday from May 30 to Sept. 2 at the Cantor
Arts Center on the Stanford University Campus. Admission is free. For
information, call (650) 723-4177 or visit www.museum.stanford.edu

July 19, 2007

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré’s practice is encyclopedic, aspiring to the depiction of everything, a means of apprehending and communicating the way the world works. He makes thousands of postcard-sized drawings, graphic images bordered by upper-case texts that categorise and date them. They are exquisite, symbolic cartoons, drawn inballpoint and coloured pencils. As he explains: “I usually depict men and women. After all, the earth is humanity.” Also there are pictures of hunting traps, clouds, rocks, gold weights and kola nuts, very loaded from a West African point of view. More generally, they convey a need to know how we know the most familiar things – not just a question of communication, but how our communication determines our understanding.

By accumulation, Bouabré’s work acquires its strength and gravity. His various series involve hundreds and hundreds of pieces, drawings that are like diary entries, countless observations on everyday life. There is a modesty, of medium and subject matter, foiled by a philosophical ambition that is conveyed by the umbrella titles: Connaissance du monde (Knowledge of the World), Le Musee du Visage Africain (The Museum of African Faces), Alphabet and Vision.

In addition, Ikon presents a new series, entitled La Haute Diplomatie (High Diplomacy), comprising 193 colourful drawings that portray individuals who personify all the countries of the world. The ﬁgures, one per postcard, wear clothes that incorporate the colours and shapes of their national ﬂags. Each has a distinct demeanour, but they all extend their right hand, in a diplomatic gesture of friendship. The consistent format belies the humorous, poignant idiosyncrasies that make subtle political references. Bouabré extends notions of connectedness with an increased internationalism. Birmingham, one of themost multi-cultural cities in the world, could not be more appropriate for this exhibition.

A book featuring La Haute Diplomatie, published by Ikon Shop, is available for a special exhibition price of £11.95, full price £14. Texts by André Magnin, Yaya Savané, Ettore Sottsass and Jonathan Watkins.

A blog called BibliOdyssy has recently posted images and excerpts from something called the Tovar manuscript, followed by this brief explanation w/ links:

Juan de Tovar(1543-1623) was born in Mexico from conquistador stock. He trained as a Jesuit priest and was known as the Mexican Cicero because of his eloquent preaching style and mastery of several indigenous languages.

At
the request of the Spanish Court, Tovar set about preparing a
pre-conquest ethnographic history of the Aztec peoples. He travelled
widely, interviewing native Indians, from whom he also commissioned
traditional pictographic sketches.

The Tovar manuscript (also known as the Ramírez Codex1)
consists of three main sections: an historical account of "the ancient
Mexicans from their first migration into the central valley of Mexico,
to their conquest by the Spaniards"; an illustrated history of the
Aztecs (most images above); and the Tovar Calendar - an attempt to
combine the Nahuatl calendar with christian Saint days. The manuscript
dates to about 1585.

This is an absolutely outstanding collection,
with more than 4000 images of 'books, maps, and manuscripts relating to
the colonial period of the Americas, North and South, from 1492 to ca.
1825'. I am amazed I had never, to my recall, seen this InsightBrowser
site before. I've only had a very modest perusal of their holdings so
far, but I will definitely return in the near future. It's great to see
any material relating to the
Caribbean and the Guyanas, but there is so much more in here. The
extent of the background notes is commendable too.

These few links give some measure of background, but I didn't find too much that seemed like a confident authority on all of this.

1.
Brown University owns the original of the Tovar manuscript and it seems
like it is the only complete version in existence. Brown U refer to a
single section of their manuscript as being
the Ramírez Codex. But the Ramírez Codex is housed in Mexico and I
assume it is the only other extant copy of the pictographic section of
the Tovar manuscript, hence the names get interchanged. There is a LOT
more complexity in the background to all this - a mysterious 'Chronicle
X' which is said to have been an older source document for both Tovar
and at least one other contemporary historian; plus, there was a
significant amount of censorship and also uncredited borrowing -- how
much of this either is true or has bearing on Tovar's manuscript is
beyond the scope of my brief review.

Below are a few images -- for more images + excerpts, go to the original post.

The Studio Museum in Harlem is proud to present David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings. One of Britain’s leading contemporary architects, Adjaye is known for his innovative
buildings and their equal emphasis on the experience and function of architecture. Making Public Buildings
focuses on his engagement with public space and the built environment,
and follows the evolution of ten major buildings from design to
production to completion. The exhibition includes architectural models,
drawings and films of the buildings, which include the 2005 Venice
Biennale pavilion and the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo; photographs of
Adjaye’s travels around the world, and writings by artists and
architects who have impacted his work. Focused on learning, community,
contemporary art and housing, Making Public Buildings reveals Adjaye’s interest in rethinking social space and redefining the
urban landscape.

Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, Adjaye has influences that
range from West African art and architecture to the work of musicians
such as George Lewis and Sun Ra and artists such as David Hammons and
Chris Ofili. By applying conceptual frameworks to the fundamentals of
architecture, he explores space, scale, measurement, light and
materials to create daring and original buildings that transform the
way we think about architecture and public space. Making Public Buildings is Adjaye’s first major exhibition.

Homes for creative A-listers Ewan McGregor, Juergen Teller, and Chris
Ofili have made Tanzania-born David Adjaye one of Britain's leading starchitects.
The Studio Museum in Harlem traces the evolution of ten projects — all
of which address public space — from initial conceit to completion. Your Black Horizon,
an Adjaye-designed windowless pavilion, housed Ólafur Elíasson's light
installation at the 2005 Venice Biennale. In Whitechapel, London,
Adjaye designed the Idea Store,
a flashy cube of blue-and-green glass that houses the local library,
dance studios, and community center. Not one for tradition, Adjaye
retooled a former train station in Oslo as the Nobel Peace Center,
adding a sculptural aluminum canopy to the building's courtyard. (HGM)

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) presents David Goldblatt: Intersections,
an exhibition of color photographs of life in post-apartheid South
Africa by one of the world's leading documentary photographers. David
Goldblatt's images of his native country have gained worldwide
recognition for their intimate, unflinching views of a culture ravaged
by prejudice and injustice. David Goldblatt: Intersections features two recent series of work, Johannesburg Intersections and Platteland Intersections,
which show the changing face of contemporary South Africa. The
exhibition opens at the museum on July 8 and runs through August 26,
2007.

Goldblatt, who was born in Randfontein, South Africa, in 1930, first
started photographing his native country in 1948, the same year the
National Party came to power and instituted the policy of apartheid.
Since that time, Goldblatt has photographed the South African people,
landscape, and cities, creating arresting images that follow in the
tradition of the great documentary photography of the twentieth
century.

The photographs featured in Johannesburg Intersections
reveal the crosscurrents of values, ideas, spaces, and people that make
up South Africa today. Goldblatt captures many of the significant
social changes that have occurred in the past decade, including the
large numbers of black low-wage workers who now live in the cities, and
the white residents and businesses that have relocated from the cities
to newly built suburbs and office parks. He also depicts the crude
cemeteries that are evidence of the impact of HIV/AIDS in the
townships, and political change in the form of the elected officials
who lead municipalities created following government reforms. In Platteland Intersections,
Goldblatt shows the vastness of the landscape, the damage done to the
land by the mining industry, and the dignity of the people living on
the land.

Goldblatt photographed exclusively in black and white until well into
the 1990s; with color, he felt, he could not express his rage,
revulsion, and fear of the ideology of apartheid. With the beginning of
a new political and social era after the abolition of apartheid and
South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, Goldblatt felt the
need to expand the expressive possibilities of his work. A new
generation of color films and the remarkable control of contrast and
color saturation enabled by digital reproduction have made that
possible for him. His more recent work, including the series featured
in David Goldblatt: Intersections,
uses large-format photography combined with advanced ink-jet papers to
produce images that are redolent of the colors and light of the South
African landscape.

Goldblatt's photographs of life in South Africa have been published in
a large number of magazines and books. His major publication, South Africa: The Structure of Things Then,
was released in 1998 to critical acclaim, and that same year a solo
exhibition of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
It wasn't until 2002 that Goldblatt gained international recognition
with an exhibition of two groups of photographs at the contemporary art
exhibition Documenta 11. Today his work is in major collections around
the world, including the French National Collection and the Victoria
and Albert Museum in London.AIDS [via http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/goldblatt]

Goldblatt's most recent works have accented the most topical and urgent problem in South Africa: HIV-AIDS. South Africa has one of the highest percentages of HIV-AIDS victims in the world. Although there are signs of change, the government has reacted less than decisively, even to the extent of denying the problem. There are several public campaigns to heighten awareness of the disease and of safe sex, among them the "planting" of the "AIDS ribbon" in the social landscape where, as Goldblatt's photographs show, it is often submerged and seemingly forgotten.

July 09, 2007

EAT, DRINK, BE LITERARY From left, Jessica Pigza, Maria Falgoust, Jeff
Buckley and Sarah Murphy at a social event for librarians where the
author Robert Sullivan, far right, spoke. photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

via NYTimes:

A Hipper Crowd of ShushersBy KARA JESELLAPublished: July 8, 2007ON a Sunday night last month at Daddy’s, a bar in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, more than a dozen people in their 20s and 30s gathered at a
professional soiree, drinking frozen margaritas and nibbling
store-bought cookies. With their thrift-store inspired clothes and
abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web
designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists.

SOCIAL BOOKWORMS Maria Falgoust helped start Desk Set to meet like-minded librarians. Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

“Maria Falgoust, 31, is also a founder of Desk Set, which took its name from the 1957 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy romantic comedy. A student who works part time at the library at Saint Ann’s School, she was inspired to become a librarian by a friend, a public librarian who works with teenagers and goes to rock shows regularly.

Since matriculating to Palmer, Ms. Falgoust has met plenty of other like-minded librarians at places such as Brooklyn Label, a restaurant, and at Punk Rope, an exercise class. “They’re everywhere you go,” she said.”

When talk turned to a dance party the group had recently given at a nearby restaurant, their profession became clearer.

“Did you try the special drinks?” Sarah Gentile, 29, asked Jennifer Yao, 31, referring to the colorfully named cocktails.

“I got the Joy of Sex,” Ms. Yao replied. “I thought for sure it was French Women Don’t Get Fat.”

Ms.
Yao could be forgiven for being confused: the drink was numbered and
the guests had to guess the name. “613.96 C,” said Ms. Yao,
cryptically, then apologized: “Sorry if I talk in Dewey.”

That would be the Dewey Decimal System. The groups’ members were librarians. Or, in some cases, guybrarians.

“He
hates being called that,” said Sarah Murphy, one of the evening’s
organizers and a founder of the Desk Set, a social group for librarians
and library students.

Ms. Murphy was speaking of Jeff Buckley,
a reference librarian at a law firm, who had a tattoo of the logo from
the Federal Depository Library Program peeking out of his black T-shirt
sleeve.

Librarians? Aren’t they supposed to be bespectacled women
with a love of classic books and a perpetual annoyance with talkative
patrons — the ultimate humorless shushers?

Not any more. With so
much of the job involving technology and with a focus now on finding
and sharing information beyond just what is available in books, a new
type of librarian is emerging — the kind that, according to the Web
site Librarian Avengers, is “looking to put the ‘hep cat’ in
cataloguing.”

When the cult film “Party Girl” appeared in 1995,
with Parker Posey as a night life impresario who finds happiness in the
stacks, the idea that a librarian could be cool was a joke.

Now,
there is a public librarian who writes dispatches for McSweeney’s
Internet Tendency, a favored magazine of the young literati.
“Unshelved,” a comic about librarians — yes, there is a comic about
librarians — features a hipster librarian character. And, in real life,
there are an increasing number of librarians who are notable not just
for their pink-streaked hair but also for their passion for pop
culture, activism and technology.

“We’re not the typical librarians anymore,” said Rick Block, an adjunct professor at the Long Island University
Palmer School and at the Pratt Institute School of Information and
Library Science, both graduate schools for librarians, in New York
City.

“When I was in library school in the early ’80s, the students weren’t as interesting,” Mr. Block said.

Since
then, however, library organizations have been trying to recruit a more
diverse group of students and to mentor younger members of the
profession.

“I think we’re getting more progressive and hipper,” said Carrie Ansell, a 28-year-old law librarian in Washington.

In
the last few years, articles have decried the graying of the
profession, noting a large percentage of librarians that would soon be
retiring and a seemingly insurmountable demand for replacements. But
worries about a mass exodus appear to have been unfounded.

Michele Besant, the librarian at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
said the Association of Library and Information Science statistics show
a steady increase in library information science enrollments over the
last 10 years. Further, at hers and other schools there is a trend for
students to be entering masters programs at a younger age.

The
myth prevails that librarians are becoming obsolete. “There’s Google,
no one needs us,” Ms. Gentile said, mockingly, over a drink at Daddy’s.

Still,
these are high-tech times. Why are people getting into this profession
when libraries seem as retro as the granny glasses so many of the
members of the Desk Set wear?